As it is well known, the current regulations on the safety of electrical household appliances are becoming more severe. In particular, with regard to the most advanced home appliances, it must be ensured that when the door is closed and the washing machine is operating, the door cannot be opened in any way. When the door is closed and the washing machine is not operating, the door can be opened either by a suitable drive member, so as to allow the opening without any effort, or by applying some preset force to the door. This latter option is required to allow a child, which was introduced in the washing machine, going out, for example by applying a force with his legs on the inner surface of the door. It is also required that, in case of opening of the door due to failure of the prong of the door itself, while the washing machine is operating, the device can “sense” the breaking of said prong and interrupt power supply, and thus the operation of the household appliance.
An example of a device as defined above is described in the patent application RM2008A000062 of the Applicant, which comprises essentially an electric module and a mechanical module interacting each other, in which the drive member to open the door, when the washing machine is turned off, is a button arranged on the control panel of the washing machine, which, by means of a string or an electrical device, activates a lever within the mechanical module, so as to open the door.
At present, market requires that the opening of the door can be made in a more and more comfortable and ergonomic way. In particular, the arrangement of the opening drive member drive directly on the door handle of the door, or in general on the surface of the latter, is required.
A technical difficulty encountered for this kind of operation is due to the fact that the space available for implementing a mechanism or a device generally capable of interacting with the door lock to open the door, is very small, in particular for washing machines, where, for security and sealing reasons, practically there is not closing overrun.
In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a system for opening a door that can be activated by a drive member arranged on the handle of the door itself.
These and other results are obtained according to the invention with a drive member, like a button or a lever, arranged on the handle by which the movement of a member arranged on the prong of the door can be controlled, said member being capable to interact with the mechanical module of the device to open the door.